Sympathetic and Undercooked

Sympathetic but undercooked – this is how I would refer to my most recent attempt at domesticity and such. Read on dear reader and you too will see why it is that I and almost anything to do with domestic tasks are such awkward mates. I am seriously beginning to think I need to go back to work full time. If any of you happen to know anyone looking for a writer who cannot cook…

Twice a year I undertake the task of buying bags of potpourri to place round the house - to make it smell fresh and awake. I like a house that is alive and not stale.

So, in an effort to undertake this leviathan task I recently made a trek to the neighborhood Home Goods for discounts on the pricey smelly stuff as my DH and others of his ilk sometimes refer to my attempts at making our home appear warm and comforting.

To my utter surprise and joy, I secured said potpourri without too much of a hassle and was on my way toward the exit when I happened upon some baking sheets stacked several feet high.

They were snuggled very closely together. And while previous entries on this blog have chartered the landscape of my limited baking abilities, I was nevertheless in need of a mini loaf pan – I had this grandiose plan of making such loaves for the teachers this holiday season.

So, being the bull in the china shop that I apparently didn’t know I was – I attempted to remove a pan from the top of the stack – not the middle or the bottom- that would be a disaster waiting to happen. The top of the stack is safe- or so I thought.

One minute, I was standing next to my cart brimming with bags of potpourri in spice and orange clove. The next I was knee deep in pans and bric a brac of every variety, shape, size color and clangability one could ever imagine. And I couldn’t escape. The nasty beasts of Teflon in pie pans, cake pans, muffin pans and things to which I cannot put a name were clonking me on the head and shoulders and landing in a very unceremonious pile at my feet.

Needless to say I stood there. Like a statue. Like a child ready to accept the yet unnamed fate of the nuns in the black capes and penguin gear prowling the hallowed halls rulers keeping time in the palm of their cold thorny hands and ready to pounce (I am dating myself here since I doubt such prehistoric teachers religious or otherwise exist anymore – at least I hope so…)

Thus I stood, a Rodin model in the making, gently rubbing the sore spot on my elbow where a lovely colored bruise of lavender was already beginning to show itself.

“May I help you ma'am?” I felt a warm breath smelling of peppermint on my neck.

I turned to see a short, wider more than tall middle aged man with a scruffy white beard standing with his hands on his hips and a grimace on his brow.

“I am so sorry,” I said in my most contrite and truly mortified voice – a cross between a squeal and a yelp.

“I was trying...”

“I can see what you were trying to do,” he said in a manly voice. He scooped up several of the pans and tins scattered in the aisle as if to get me and my cart out of there as quickly as possible.

I knelt down and handed him several of the pie pans and he thanked me and then took my cart and me and guided us toward the cashier.

“Have a good day ma'am, and ...”

I was sure he was going to say something like don’t come back again. Instead he said, “and be careful.”

I guess it is a pretty good idea – in my case.

The most unfortunate part of this whole event is that after all the hoopla of cooking paraphernalia everywhere- not a single mini loaf pan to be found. Not a one.

There is a reason cooking and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum.